


Into the Woods

by KrisEleven



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Geographical Inaccuracies, M/M, Minor Scott McCall/Kira Yukimura, mountain man Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrisEleven/pseuds/KrisEleven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Well, yeah, I’m following someone," Stiles explained.  Eyebrows raised as Derek's judging increased. “Not in a creepy way! It’s my best friend and his girlfriend.” One side of his stupid mouth rose in a wry smile. “Not like – they’re lost!”</p><p>Now Derek didn’t look amused at all. He looked back at the paper, no doubt noting that they had planned to have returned almost 48 hours ago. “You have to report that.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, I didn’t think of that,” Stiles snarked. “Of course I reported it. I called the ranger station yesterday.”</p><p>“And they told you to stay out of the forest while they conducted a search.” It wasn’t a question.</p><p>“Well, okay, maybe that was said, but –”</p><p>“You’re an idiot,” he told Stiles, rolling his eyes.</p><p>-------</p><p>Or, When Scott and Kira get lost on a romantic hike in The Siskiyou Wilderness, Stiles enlists the help of Mountain Man Derek Hale to find them and ends up on a <i>completely unexpected </i>romantic hike of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [ AnEqualOpportunist](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AnEqualOpportunist) for the beta! And for saving my life, because I would have lost this fic in my computer crash a few weeks ago without the email you sent me. 
> 
> Please note, I intended to research this fic, played around on Google Maps for about 45 minutes, and then basically did what I wanted. Somehow all geography resembles a southern Canadian forest. Who knows how that happened?

Stiles pulled off I-95 and into Happy Camp, the windows down to blast cool autumn air into his face in a desperate bid to stay awake. Finally turning into the Ranger’s station at the edge of the Klamath woke him from the daze he had been in for the last 60 miles. Despite the early hour, there was already a command center set up for the search when Stiles ended his five hour drive. 

Stiles pulled his jeep in at the end of the row. He parked haphazardly, close enough to the car on his driver’s side that he could barely open his door. He wriggled free. He was unwilling to put the extra time into re-parking, not when there could be news. Not when he had already wasted so many hours just driving.

Inside, Stiles ignored the rack of hikers’ guides, safety pamphlets, and maps to hurry up to the counter. There was a woman sitting at the front, a group of rangers standing around a table just behind her. She smiled at him as he skid to a stop, hitting his hip off the counter edge and panting.

“Hi, hi, my name’s Stiles? I was talking to a ranger on the phone,” he rambled. "I was the one who reported my friends missing.”

“Mr Stilinski, right?” one of the nearby rangers said, stepping forward. “I’m Jason. We spoke on the phone.” Stiles recognized the voice from his frantic call in the evening the day before. “I thought you were in school at Berkeley.”

“Yeah, I am.”

His eyebrows rose. “That’s a six hour drive.”

Stiles had made it in just over five. The interstate had been clear in the earliest hours of the morning and he had been driving at speeds he would never, ever tell his father about.

“I left early,” he said instead. “I want to help you look for them.”

Jason stepped around, and guided Stiles away, back towards the door. Stiles resisted the urge to hold onto the lip of counter and refused to move. He was a responsible adult. He was not freaking out. His hands were not shaking. He hid them in his jacket pocket.

“We’re not taking civilian volunteers. We have our station, and some local law enforcement out looking for your friends. The itinerary you provided was helpful, and we are going over the paths they planned to take into Siskiyou.”

“But it’s been two days since they were supposed to come back!” Stiles said. He shoved his hand back into his pocket when he felt the tug on his hair. He hadn’t given it permission to do that, and he was completely calm and in control. “You’re still just looking at the trails in, they must have made it up into the mountains. It was a week’s trip. They could have gotten turned around any point in the last nine days. You may be looking in the wrong places.”

“Mr. Stilinski –”

“I need to help look for them. Scott means well with this romantic adventure, he does, but Kira is from New York. Why would she want to wander in the woods for a week? And I told you about his asthma. I just- I can’t just sit at school like –”

“I get it, I do,” Jason said calmly, meeting Stiles’ panicked gaze. “But you have to understand, Mr. Stilinski, that we have to do things right. If I send volunteers into a wilderness area, I end up with half of them lost out in those mountains needing rescue themselves. My search and rescue have to search the area properly, or we might miss your friends entirely. We know what we’re doing. We’ve done this before. We can’t have you wandering out into the wilderness. You don’t know anything about the terrain.”

“But–” Stiles cut himself off, knowing it would make no difference. It wasn’t like he didn’t understand. He had heard the story from the other side when it was his father dealing with missing persons. There was due process, and the family of a victim didn’t always understand. He got it. He did. It was different on the other side of this hair-pulling, gut-wrenching line where panic and worry intersected. “Okay,” he said instead, biting his lower lip.

Jason clasped his shoulder. “I have your number?” Stiles nodded. “Stay in town if you want. I’ll make sure you’re on the call list with your friends’ parents, okay?” Stiles nodded again. Jason shook his shoulder in a friendly clasp and retreated back to the other side of the station. Now that Stiles had a moment to watch, he could see that they had maps laid out on the tables. They were obviously planning their day’s search.

Then why were Scott and Kira still missing?

Stiles walked back outside, and swallowed, allowing himself a few shallow breaths. The parking lot seemed to stretch and waver and he fought off a panic attack. He reached his car, and sat staring out of his windshield at the boarded up building across the street. He should find a motel or inn, get a little sleep and wait for a call from Jason, or the lady at the phones. Exhaustion was pressing on the inside of his temples, blurring his sight. There should be somewhere to stay close by. Stiles started the Jeep and drove back towards the hiking supplies outlet he’d seen down the street.

Bigfoot Outlet. Stiles almost smiled. It was like most of the buildings he’d seen in Happy Camp: low, wider than it was long, with white metal siding and a steel roof. Inside, the store was militant in its organization. Metal racks were drilled into bare concrete floors stacked and filled with survival supplies. Stiles wandered the empty store, unwilling to admit that he had no idea what he should be looking for. He pulled items at random as he recognized them and thought of situations in which they could possibly be necessary. He put back the second can of bear mace after some deliberation. If that many bears attacked him, he would be dealing with some deeper issues.

Dragging his final choices up to the counter in the center of the store took two trips and a bit of wild balancing. Stiles finally got everything piled onto the counter. It was only then that he was finally met by what he assumed was an employee. He had to guess. There was no greeting. Not even any eye contact before he started to pull Stiles’ purchases towards him, typing them into a dated till computer. He was… well, _really_ good-looking, if Stiles was to be honest, which he usually was in his own head (often despite his best efforts to the contrary). Stiles supposed the untamed scruff and simple, worn sweater and jeans were common enough. It fit the mountain-man look Stiles expected this far into the wilds of northern California. Plus, it all suited him. The dark hair emphasized skin tone, the stubble framed stupidly perfect bone structure, and his muscled frame showed through the worn fabric of his shirt.

Stiles shook himself out of it. At least he was being so studiously ignored that his staring and (probably) drooling went unnoticed. He pulled out the itinerary Scott had left him, unwrinkling it and setting it on the counter. “If I were going to follow this plan, where would I start off?” he asked.

He scoffed. “Do I look like a tourism information booth? Ask the rangers.”

Stiles frowned at the abrupt dismissal. “Well, yeah, I would, but they kind of already told me to butt out. You know the area, right?”

He got a moment of eye contact for that, a judging glance from up under his eyebrows. He snatched the paper from under Stiles’ hand and looked it over. “This is from last week,” he said.

“Well, yeah, I’m following someone.” Eyebrows raised as his judging increased. “Not in a creepy way! It’s my best friend and his girlfriend.” One side of his stupid mouth rose in a wry smile. “Not like – they’re lost!”

Now he didn’t look amused at all. He looked back at the paper, no doubt noting that they had planned to have returned almost 48 hours ago. “You have to report that.”

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t think of that,” Stiles snarked. “Of course I reported it. I called the ranger station yesterday.”

“And they told you to stay out of the forest while they conducted a search.” It wasn’t a question.

“Well, okay, maybe that was said, but –”

“You’re an idiot,” he told Stiles, rolling his eyes.

“Hey!”

“You can’t just go out into Siskiyou,” he continued over Stiles’ protest. “It’s called a wilderness zone for a reason. Its 300 square miles of forests and mountains, and then you have the rest of the Klamath. This time of year you’re going to get nights that go below freezing, enough to kill you since I bet _that’s_ the only jacket you have. You don’t have any maps here, or a GPS, and you don’t know shit about the terrain. Leave it to the experts.”

Damn town and its damn stupid unhelpful – “I can’t,” Stiles said. He passed his credit card over the counter.

“You’re going to get lost out there,” he insisted. He pressed the card back across the counter with two fingers. “You’ll probably get eaten by a bear, and then the rangers will be pissed at me.”

“It’s not like I’ve never seen trees; I live on a Preserve,” Stiles protested. He couldn’t force the card back against the guy’s two-finger press on it. Jesus. Did he work out his _fingers_ , what was this? “Just take my money, you weirdo.”

Stiles fell forward when his credit card was freed from their little reverse-tug-of-war. He gaped when his supplies were swept behind the counter. “I’m not selling these to you.”

“What? You can’t do that. It’s a free country, I can go out in the woods if I want to.”

The resulting scoff was admirable. “'Woods'.” Stiles followed him through the stacks as he returned each of Stiles’ would-be purchases

“I’m a customer! You’re going to just not serve me?” Stiles resisted the urge to pull each of the items back off the shelves behind him. At least he would be matching him in petulance and stubbornness.

The smiles directed at him was smug. “Free country.”

“Fine,” Stiles snapped. He marched towards the door, and turned on his heel at the last minute, swinging his arms out in an angry arc. “I’m still going,” he said. “Scott would come for me, if I ever needed him. I can’t just do _nothing_.” He was humiliated as he felt tears press on his eyelids. His voice thickened and wavered. “I don’t need your stupid bear mace.”

He slammed through the door and kicked the gravel on the way back to his Jeep.

“If a bear is that close to you, bear spray is just going to piss it off anyway,” mountain-man said, having followed Stiles outside.

“And I suppose you would just _glare it into submission_ ,” he shot back over his shoulder. “You have a twisted idea of customer service, by the way. Generally the customer is actually allowed to buy something before getting free advice.”

Stiles heard the man sigh, as if _he_ was the inconvenienced one. “You’re still going to go out there.”

“I can’t do nothing.”

Stiles watched as he looked out over the low buildings of the street, at the forested hills rising above them. “You need a guide.”

“Are you – are you volunteering?” Stiles had emotional whiplash. Was there something in the water here?

“You’re paying for the shit we need,” he replied, turning back into to the store. Stiles pumped the air in victory and followed him up the steps. “Can I at least know your name, if we’re going to be bonding all ‘man versus wild’ style?”

He tipped his head back with an exasperated exhale, clearly already regretting his change of heart. 

-

 

His name was Derek, and Derek lived in the absolute middle of buttfuck nowhere.

Which Stiles immediately regretted thinking. He was maybe putting too much trust in this random guy who had learned that no one knew where Stiles was going, and then led him out of town and down increasingly narrow dirt roads crowded in and crowned with trees. The road finally petered off into sparse, wild grass at the front of a small cabin. It was constructed with stained dark wood, its small front windows curtained off. The deck was graced with a single chair.

“People know where I am,” was what burst out of Stiles’s mouth the instant he stepped from the jeep. Derek looked suitably chastened into good behaviour, Stiles thought. In other words, he ignored Stiles completely and walked up to his not-a-serial-killer cabin.

God, Stiles was going to die. Scott better be alive to mourn his sacrifice.

There was a crash as Derek jumped the steps onto his porch and then loud baying from inside the cabin. Stiles froze, one foot still in the air, as Derek opened the door and it erupted fur and barking and scrambling dogs. They wriggled around Derek for a moment. Then one of them caught Stiles’ scent and launched off the cabin porch towards him. Another followed a moment later, circling him warily.

“Be nice,” Derek said.

“What?” Stiles asked, throwing his hands up out of the reach of their teeth.

“Not you,” Derek threw over his shoulder with a toothy grin as he disappeared inside. He left Stiles alone with them.

“Wait,” Stiles hissed at him, trying not to move as they sniffed at him. They wouldn’t see him if he didn’t move, or they could smell fear, or one of those was for dinosaurs, wasn’t it,? Shit. One of the dogs was smaller, blonde fur light enough to belong to a retriever or lab, but with narrow features and pointed ears. The other was what Stiles assumed to be a mixture of Rottweiler, shepherd and _bear_. He sniffed at Stiles only once before wandering back up the porch steps and disappearing inside. The blonde followed him part-way, and then turned and rushed Stiles. She leapt to the side at the last second and leaving him flailing and gasping for air.

“Gah,” he yelled after her.

Derek emerged from the cabin with his third dog in tow. This one followed close to his heels, eyeing Stiles skittishly. His tightly curled fur was light brown, and his size was made up by lanky legs that seemed too long for his torso.

“Are you coming.” His tone was flat. He didn’t wait before he turned and went back into the darkness of the doorway.

“Your dog tried to eat me,” Stiles announced, following him inside. He blinked in the doorway, adjusting to the lower light before he examined his surroundings. It was… rustic? Is that the nice way to describe a two-room cabin? The logs of the walls and the wooden beams of the ceiling were still visible. There was a camp kitchen in one corner: gas stove and fireplace, fridge and a wheelable counter island. There was a rough carved table that Derek had spread survival gear over, and a single aluminum folding chair. Stiles assumed the one door led to a bathroom, since he could see a single bed behind a curtain hanging from a wire rail. The curtain – no, it was a bedsheet. It had wolves on it. Classy. But, hey… indoor plumbing was an unexpected surprise. 

“Here,” he said, thrusting an empty backpack into Stiles’ chest hard enough that he staggered back a step. “Get this stuff packed up.” Stiles looked over the table. There was more stuff than he would have thought to pack, and it was clear that Derek had actual experience. Among all the camping gear was also a radio to get in touch with the Rangers when they found Scott and Kira. 

"We can get up to the junction of Lyall’s Bend from here,” Derek said. “Your friends should have made it up there their third night. It’s close to here. We can follow their trail, find their camps and figure out what went wrong.”

“Why aren’t the rangers doing this?” Stiles asked as he shoved canned food into his backpack.

“They are. They’re searching by air, they are combing the trails in and out. We’re going to jump to the middle of the itinerary. Honestly,” he meets Stiles’ gaze here, "it’ll keep you out of their way.”

“But we’re still going to be looking.”

Derek's gaze flickered off to the side away from his earnestness. “Yeah. We’ll go look.”

“But you think the rangers will find them.”

“Does it matter. Any more stupid questions?”

“Are your dogs going to eat me?”

“Pack the damn bag.”

-

Stiles learned the dogs’ names once they were in the forest. Isaac was the skittish one. He stayed close to Derek’s heels unless Stiles followed too close behind. This would make him skitter into the trees and follow at a distance. Boyd was the shepherd-bear (Shepear? Bepherd? How would that even happe-? No, no stop), and Erica was _the mean one_. She crashed out of the woods and into the back of his legsevery time the ground was uneven. She also loved to hit him in the stomach with her front paws, knocking him back with a huffed breath. His shirt was covered in overlapping little dog paw prints, like wanna-be leopard print.

“Keep up,” Derek ordered without looking back when Stiles stopped to brace a hand on a tree and tried to adjust his pack. He looked around, taking a moment to adjust to the weight and to the sudden dim of tree cover filtering sunlight overhead. Derek would wait for him. Maybe. Stiles made a face and pushed himself off the tree trunk, continuing along the path. Probably not.

Still, he couldn’t help but look his fill at the beauty around him. There was a silence to it, one that Stiles hadn’t ever noticed in the Beacon Hill’s Preserve. Not surprising, since he only went there with Scott when they were looking to get into trouble.

And because, well, _Stiles_ was there.

He had been doing well. They had been walking for like ten _minutes_ before he broke the silence around them.

“Did you leave a note for your girlfriend, wife, boyfriend, mom…?” He kept guessing when Derek didn’t answer until he forced himself to stop. “Someone? I don’t want to get arrested for kidnapping you. Not like I could kidnap you. Even without the bear.” Derek looked back at that, not interested and mostly against his will. Stiles would take what he could get. When Stiles gestured at Boyd, Derek’s rolled eyes were the end of his involvement in the conversation.

Stiles would have left it there. Derek was the strong, silent type. Stiles could get behind that (ha!). No, really, he could.

“Seriously, though,” he continued, because… come on. He couldn’t. “I didn’t see a note.”

“I live there by myself.” Derek’s voice carried back over his shoulder by pure force of irritation; he didn’t bother turning his head.

Great. Solitary cabin-dwelling mountain man takes college student into the woods. Not at all a horror-movie worthy plot.

Stiles could just see his father’s expression if he ever found out about this. Good thing he would _never_ find out about this.

“So,” Stiles dragged the word out. He didn’t want to say it. If he said it, he would just be the catalyst to start off the horror movie events. There would be inbred mutants surrounding them in _seconds_. He knew his shit.

Still, if he didn’t say it, the universe would think he was oblivious. Oblivious horror movie characters died even sooner than the others, didn’t they? “No one… knows we’re out here?”

Derek still didn’t look at him, but he stopped walking. Which was nice because Stiles was falling behind and was a little out of breath. Derek also tipped his head back and stared at the sky in a pose Stiles was _very_ familiar with. Ah, the ol’ praying for guidance of the divine variety.

Stiles’ poor father. Seriously. He must _never know_.

“I sent an itinerary to the Rangers’ station,” Derek said finally. He was still looking at the sky. Perhaps the comment was directed to some god who was better suited at dealing with Stiles. Hey, Stiles wasn’t ruling anything out. If a divine being was to make itself known, Stiles reasoned, it would be to help someone deal with him.

“Oh yeah,” Stiles agreed. “That’s important, isn’t it?”

Derek just kept walking. Boyd sent him an unimpressed look. Stiles tried to respond – using only his eyebrows and hand gestures – that he was just riling Derek up at this point. He _knew_ that. Stiles had done three hours of research condensed into a solid hour forty-five minutes and three Red Bulls between reporting Scott and Kira missing and driving out here, okay? He knew itineraries. He had just forgotten that Derek might have access to a wi-fi connection inside his pioneer village of a house. So sue him. But in the middle of his explanation, his sneaker caught on a raised root and he stumbled, flailing. Boyd stopped and peed on a tree.

Well said, Boyd.

Stiles thought it best to stay quiet for a time. It would have worked, but his mouth and brain staged another foray in a long-standing mutinous coup. He found himself talking, to Derek’s increasingly expressive back. 

It was a good thing Stiles was so adept at reading body language, with the amount people he talked to going around ignoring him.

Stiles was getting pretty good a reading the set of Derek’s shoulders, the way he flexed and twitched his fingers. The sighs and head rolls – if he exaggerated his eye rolling anymore he’d be doing cartwheels – well, those clues were helpful too.

In fact, Derek didn’t seem to want to talk about much. His job, small town life, TV shows - the usual conversation starters - these were all brushed off. Stiles thought family would be a safe topic, but jumped from that at Derek’s reaction.

Obviously a no-go on the topic front.

He didn’t seem interested in Stiles’ classes and professors at Berkeley, either. Stiles told him about them anyway. At least he didn’t tense up like he was about to panic and run off into the woods, or turn and batter Stiles for bringing it up.

The terrain was growing steeper. The trail meandered along small valleys filled with leaf litter and then up into tree-dotted hills and back down. The hills got higher and the valleys smaller, growing steeper along the edges. Stiles wasn't an outdoorsy guy, but he could why people came from all over the country to camp in this park. They could see the mountains whenever the trees cleared, rising into the blue of the sky. 

Derek and his dogs moved along the path, through the tall grasses and between the trees like the belonged there. The landscape seemed intent on keeping Stiles out. Stiles had to stop talking as he tried to keep up. He cursed his shoes, which seemed to be in competition over which could form the most blisters on Stiles’ poor feet.

Derek looked back at him, catching Stiles in the middle of a wince. The next clearing they walked through had Derek stopping. He dropped his pack from his shoulders onto the wide hot rock that rolled through the empty space.

“Wait, what are we doing?” Stiles asked. “Let’s keep going. I’m good!”

Derek looked at him sidelong, exasperated. “Give your feet a break,” he ordered.

Stiles didn’t want to give his feet a break. What if they stopped because Stiles had a couple blisters and Scott or Kira had fallen off a precipice, or got themselves mauled by a bear? What if they _needed_ him and he was here, resting his feet? What if –

His frantic wondering were interrupted by a granola bar to the face.

“Just sit down and eat,” Derek said. “We’ll be on our way in five minutes.” His tone was irritated, but he watched Stiles carefully. The wrinkle between his eyebrows relaxed when Stiles bent down to lower himself on the moss-covered rock. Once he was chewing, Derek dug into his bag and tossed him a plastic water bottle. He gave Stiles enough warning to at least make an unsuccessful grab at it. He finished up the bottle, a little disappointed that Derek had only left him a mouthful.

“There’s some other bottles in your pack,” Derek said. Stiles dug around, pulling out the things he’d tucked into the pack in Derek’s cabin. More wrapped snacks, Scott’s inhaler, a box of matches, ah, the water. Stiles broke the plastic seal and took a long drink before holding it out to Derek.

He noted the inhaler as he accepted the bottle. “Do you have asthma?” he asked. Stiles packed the inhaler up again.

“No, Scott does. I just thought… Maybe his had run out or something?” Stiles chewed the side of his thumb. “What if he had an attack and forgot that I had his extra? Kira wouldn’t be able to get him out of here by herself. They would –”

“Hey,” Derek interrupted his train of thought before it could turn into panic, again. “We’re going to find your friend. It’s good you brought that.”

Stiles turned the inhaler over in his hands. “I always have his extra. He’s not good at keeping track of them. His mom’s always made sure to give me his emergency ones, even when we were little kids.” He smiled, looking down at it. “It’s the only thing I could be trusted to do, you know? I could get distracted, or find trouble, doing anything else, but taking care of Scott? That’s been my thing. I mean… it’s not like either of us have much in the way of family. We kind of had to make our own, you know? He’s my brother, I just… We’ve got to find him.”

Stiles looked up, embarrassed by the heat behind his eyes that threatened tears. Derek looked embarrassed by it too, either with Stiles’ over-share or the way his emotions were being oozed all over him. He stood up and stretched. His dogs jumped up from their dozing spots on the rocks around them at the movement. “Let’s get going, then,” he said, already moving away. Stiles shoved the rest of his bar back into his pack. He zipped it up, and rolled the inhaler over once more time before zipping it into his jacket pocket. Shouldering the pack with a grunt, he hurried to where Erica waited for him at the edge of the clearing. She waited just his side of where the trees grew thick again. “I’m good,” he assured her. And he was – or, he would be. Just as soon as they found his friends and he could go home.

-

 

Derek didn’t speak again for the rest of the afternoon.

Let Stiles repeat that: _Derek didn’t speak again for the rest of the afternoon._

Stiles kept himself as distracted as he could. His feet throbbed and stung in shoes that were not meant for the terrain or length of activity, _at all_. Stiles wasn’t into this sort of thing, ok? He didn’t have hiking shoes ready for Scott getting lost on a date weekend. He couldn’t be blamed for that, but as he winced his way across a rocky clearing, it was obvious he was going to be punished for it anyway. Stiles held up a one-way conversation with Erica, who trailed along beside him for a while. It was a good diistraction, though she finally sighed and ambled off.

The views were distracting, too, as they climbed higher. The trees cleared once or twice an hour to reveal wide sweeping plains of meadow grasses flush with wildflowers, or to allow them to look down on the waving sea of forest crowns. As he trailed behind Derek to look out over one such view, Stiles realized that the light was fading. Once he noticed, it was hard to ignore how he had to blink to focus, especially amongst the trees where the fading light filtered through the branches overhead. Stiles was _tired_ , sore, and despite his anxiety, just wanted to stop walking. Please, at any time, maybe, soon?

Derek could probably have walked on until he reached the coast, and on again not letting a pesky thing like the ocean block his scowly path. As the light truly started to fade into dusk, he led Stiles to a clearing and shrugged his pack off. He gestured for Stiles to do the same. It was an established campsite. There was a ringed campfire with a small pile of wood left covered next to it, and some flat boulders set beside as seats. Stiles did try to help Derek set up camp, but he’d never claimed it was his forte. He may live on a preserve, but video games and his computer had always been more his thing. Derek finally banished him with a barked order. He made quick work of the tent and portable stove, allowing Stiles to finally collapse onto one of the rocks and rest his feet.

When the tent was up and the stove heating, Derek started to build a fire. Stiles pulled some of the cooking gear out of his pack. There were a few cans, and one of those old winding can openers that Stiles couldn’t work because the Stilinskis weren’t _savages_ ; they had an electric one, thank you. He would not be defeated, though. He was nothing if not resourceful. He’d made it to like 200 days in Don’t Starve. He opened the cans with only mild butchering and dumped them in the collapsible pots, setting them to heat. Derek’s grunt when Stiles announced his success was a particularly impressed one. Stiles could tell.

They didn’t talk while they ate. Stiles was not surprised, but he was beginning to get a little desperate. Not that he wasn’t used to people ignoring him because – wow, yes, he was an expert at that. But he’d never been stuck with someone as conversationally-adverse as Derek for so long before. He found he wasn’t dealing with it well. He had taken to glaring across the camp at Derek. This was made worse by the fact that Derek ignored him completely.

As Stiles cleaned up camp and Derek fed the dogs, the pain in Stiles’ feet came back with a vengeance. He was pretty sure that once he got his shoes off he wouldn’t be able to get them back on… but it’s not like he could sleep with them on. Could he? No. No, he would have to take them off. Might as well bite the bullet, take the plunge, rip the bandaid off, and so forth.

And, yes, that last analogy was painfully apt. He pried his shoes from his feet, wincing as his socks stuck and pulled against the open blisters on his heels and up the sides of his feet. There was blood soaked into the fabric which – gross. He was a little nervous about pulling them off, actually. He was still deciding when Derek came back to the fire, Boyd close behind still licking his chops. Derek lent forward to watch Stiles’ suffering and then got up and went to his pack without a word.

Stiles was muttering under his breath when Derek returned to crouch in front of his rock, making Stiles pop back surprised. “Ah!” He had opened his mouth to ask what Derek was doing when Derek upended his water bottle on Stiles’ foot, sock and all. “Dude!”

Derek looked up, eyebrows judging, before he set the half-empty bottle down and peeled Stiles’ sock off. Wet, it hardly pulled at the blisters that had opened on the backs and sides of his foot. They were actually worse than Stiles had thought. The blisters on the heels were layered on top of each other, and had broken open into wide cuts along the entire backs of his ankles. Blisters spread along the side of this foot, some grossly huge, all the way up to his toe. Ugh. Gross. And, plus, feet. Smelly feet which Derek was _holding_. Derek made a sound in the back of his throat.

“I’ve been walking all day,” Stiles protested. “You can’t judge me for the funk; of course there’s funk! Natural funk!”

Stiles’ righteous defense was brought to a halt. A screeching, holy crap _Stilinski_ is speechless halt when Derek actually huffed a laugh. “It’s fine.” He set Stiles’ foot on his leg, just above his knee. He had grabbed a small red zipped pouch from his bag along with the water. He leaned over to open it and pull out small squares of gauze and antiseptic. “You should have said,” he told Stiles without looking up, one hand holding his ankle while the other treated him. “We could have stopped.”

“They’re just blisters,” Stiles protested. He hissed as Derek rubbed a swab over the most painful one. Derek made a soothing hushing noise that Stiles was _positive_ he’d heard Scott use on dogs. Whatever. If he didn’t acknowledge it, he didn’t have to admit he did find it soothing, so.

“You’re a good friend,” Derek said.

“Thanks.” Stiles had to lean his weight on his hands for balance when Derek finished with the first foot and left it resting on his leg. Lifting the other, he pulled Stiles’ sock off and repeated the process. With nothing else to look at, Stiles found himself examining Derek’s face. He remembered thinking it in passing, but _good lord_ cheekbones and stubble and those eyes. Derek was hot. Like Bruno-Mars’-muse hot. The face was attached to a body that, well, Stiles didn’t have anything bad to say about his shoulders, or the muscles in the arms attached to them, or the breadth of his hands (which said some _very interesting_ things about the rest of his figure, if certain rumours were to be believed). Hands that were… holding Stiles’ seriously gross foot. How was this where Stiles’ life choices had led him?

Derek finished his second foot and set it on his leg, looking up at Stiles. Stiles was still watching him, categorizing his unfair hotness. He unknowingly returned Derek’s stare for a few long moments before he registered that Derek was looking at him and flailed backwards. He would have flailed right off the rock had Derek not leaned forward to steady him. He wobbled from his crouch and grabbing at Stiles’ thigh for balance. Stiles couldn’t help the laugh, was delighted when Derek returned it with a smile.

“Keep these out of the dirt,” he ordered, gesturing at Stiles’ feet which were – yup, still on Derek’s thighs, _why_. “I’ll get you some thicker socks to keep them from getting worse.” Stiles tucked his feet onto his rock. He watched Derek brace his hands on his thighs – ungh thighs – and push himself up. Grabbing the first aid kit, he walked back to his pack. Stiles didn’t watch him go because Stiles wasn’t okay with any of this. He wasn't okay with Derek being nice and smiling and sharing a joke. Admiring from a distance was kind of Stiles’ thing. That was easy when Derek was all prickly, like a porcupine, but he wasn’t acting prickly now. He was downright snuggly and if Derek was going to get snuggly, Stiles wouldn’t survive it. He needed him to be a porcupine so Stiles could admire him all distance-like. Not that he spent time admiring porcupines, that would be wei- focus.

Night fell. Derek brought Stiles those socks and then stacked fuel by the fire. The dogs circled the fire in the darkness, sniffing and crashing through the underbrush. Then , they settled around Derek’s rock, curled up and sleepy. Derek and Stiles watched the sparks spiral and chase each other upwards. The logs cracked and smoke drifted between them. Finally, the sky was dark enough above their clearing that where the sparks blinked out, stars replaced them. Stiles’ contemplation of the night sky drifted to whether Scott and Kira were looking up, too. That led him to stressing over them, and he worried his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Hey,” Derek said. “They’ll be okay. We’ll be on their trail tomorrow. We’ll find them.”

“Yeah. It’s just – If something happened to them, it’s going to be all my –” Stiles cut himself off.

Derek waited for him to continue. When the silence stretched he prompted, “What?”

“They were supposed to come home Sunday. They weren’t there, but I figured, traffic, you know? Or they stopped for food or whatever and I was going to bed early, so I didn’t think anything of it. I had classes all day Monday and I completely forgot to check for them. I _forgot_. When I got back at night and the apartment was empty I thought maybe they decided to skip Monday’s classes. It kept getting later and later, though, and they weren’t answering their phones. That’s when I finally called for help. I should have known,” he said. “Right? I should have called on Sunday. They were missing for a full day and I didn’t even notice.”

“Stop that,” Derek ordered him. “People get lost. It happens. It’s not your fault.” He paused. “You didn’t know, and when you did you came to help them out. That’s what matters.”

Stiles tried to laugh, but it came out hitched like a sob. He coughed and turned into the darkness to do a stealth swipe over his eyes. “Yeah, okay.” He looked back, at Derek over the fire. “Yeah,” he said again. “Thanks.” Stiles collected himself. He watched Derek poke at the fire with a stick, coaxing more flames from the coals beneath. “What’s a guy like you doing out here?” he asked without thinking. Derek looked up, eyebrows raised. “That wasn’t a line,” Stiles panicked. “I didn’t mean it like a line. I mean, you are abnormally good looking for a weirdo mountain cabin man but – Oh my god, stop me.”

Derek’s eyebrows said _I’m judging you_ but there was a smile he couldn’t hide playing around his mouth.

“I’m so embarrassing,” Stiles said. “I can’t take me anywhere. It’s very inconvenient.” Derek’s smile stretched into a grin. “Really, though. What are you doing way out here?”

Derek’s smile faded and he looked away. Stiles thought he wasn’t going to answer, that it would be a return to their earlier silences and distance. Before he could apologize, Derek looked back at the fire and took a breath. “I – um.” He paused. “I came out here after.” He stopped, the words refusing to form. Stiles sat, feeling weighted and heavy, as Derek struggled for his words. Stiles knew what that was like, to be so suffocated under the enormity of loss that you can’t begin to express what it is that you had loss. A weight of grief so great that you had to hold in every feeling you had, because if you made yourself any smaller you would be crushed by it.

Derek looked up, around at the darkness surrounding them, instead of at Stiles. “The cabin, it was my parents’. I had been at school, in New York, when.... Before. Even though I can go days without seeing another person, out here, nothing was as lonely as being surrounded by millions of people and having… no one. I came out here to settle the sale, but…” He paused, brow furrowed as he thought back. “I hadn’t realized how bad it was, until that loneliness was gone. And I just couldn’t go back.”

Derek didn’t look up from the fire, so Stiles could examine him in the warm flickering light. There was so much he wasn’t saying – seemed to not be _able_ to say. Stiles could fill in the blanks of loss and grief just by looking at the way his teeth worried at his lower lip, and the pain in his eyes. He took a deep breath.

“My mom died when I was nine,” he said, an offering. Derek’s gaze snapped up to him, eyes wide and vulnerable. “She had… it was a brain thing,” he generalized, as if he didn’t know every single detail of what killed her. “It’s just. I understand wanting to disappear, to hide.”

Derek stared and then took a steady breath. “There was a fire,” he said. “My parents and sisters were in the house. They didn’t get out.”

Stiles felt his heart twist in sympathy. He couldn’t _imagine_ what it had been like for Derek to lose his whole family. To lose them all at once. He had no frame of reference that wasn’t _what if my dad –_ and was then cut off sharply because _no_. But, losing someone and dealing with that fallout? Stiles knew about that.

“They wanted me to finish my degree,” Derek said, voice distant. “And instead I ran away.”

“I didn’t know them,” Stiles said. “But I think they would have understood.”

Derek’s eyes were vulnerable and wide. He looked at Stiles like there were answers he could find there. Stiles wanted to look away, but found he couldn’t draw his gaze away from the intensity he found there. Derek finally shrugged, breaking the moment. “Maybe I’ll go back, someday.”

“Yeah, dude. Whenever you’re ready.”

-

Stiles woke up with terrible breath in his face. Wow, Derek had to get that checked out because –. Stiles opened his eyes to a pleased Isaac just a few inches from his nose. He lifted his head to look at the tent flap, which was still zipped closed. “How in the hell?” he mumbled at the dog, whose tail wagged, hitting Derek in the thigh as it thumped down.

The tent Derek had brought was one of those four-men that just fit two (and a creepily Houdini-like dog, in this case). Stiles hadn't complained. It wasn’t like Stiles would have been averse to a little sleeping bag sharing.

Or… he wouldn’t have been. Before they had sat at the fire and shared the worst moments of their lives. They had stayed awake until the fire had burned down to a red-hot shifting bed of coals and white ash, the light of it barely illuminated their faces. In the vast expanse of the forest around them, their ring of light was small. It had felt like it had held all their secrets until, one by one, they were let go to drift off and blink out and disappear. Stiles had remembered how _bad_ a cook his mom had been. Derek had told him stories of his sisters’ accidental sabotage of his father’s every attempt to have a _peaceful_ Christmas.

It had been… weird. It should feel weird, but it didn’t. The light of morning was still rose-grey and dim, which meant Isaac had woken him early in the day. Now that he was awake, the birds were _ridiculously_ loud outside their tent. He wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, and he had no pressing desire to get up and start the day. Though he knew if he thought on it too long the anxiety would press him to move, in that moment he was content. The light that filtered through the fabric of the tent was warm and the heat trapped with them kept him comfortably toasty. Derek’s hair was dark on the sweater he’d bunched up and put under his head. 

Derek stretched, waking with a sleepy start when he got a handful of fur. “Isaac,” Derek growled. “Out.” Isaac wriggled backwards until he could turn and nudge the zipper with his nose. Then he shimmied out of the tent and was gone.

Stiles laughed. “You have to be kidding,” he said.

Derek hadn’t raised his head from his sweater pillow, and his smile was a little sleep-dopey. “He’s a big baby.”

“You spoil him,” Stiles accused, laying his head back down. “Let him get away with the stealth-cuddles at home, don’t try to deny it.”

Derek exhaled a laugh, one side of his mouth rising in a sleepy smile. He turned his head into his pillow, hiding his face for a moment before lifting it to look back at Stiles, amused. Stiles couldn’t look away. His own smile was more appreciation of the way Derek looked like this – in the warm light, sleepy and unguarded and so beautiful it hurt – than amusement.

He was staring. He knew he was staring, but even when Derek met his gaze and returned it he couldn’t bring himself to look away. Stiles wondered how long it had been since Derek had spent so much time with another person. How alone he’d been. Stiles reached out tentative fingertips and traced them over the curve of Derek’s cheekbones. It wasn’t as if he were new to this, the pattern of initiation and the rush of something _new_. But Stiles didn’t think he had ever _wanted_ this way before.

Derek’s eyebrows dipped and his expression tightened for a moment before his lips parted in a gasped breath and he tilted into Stiles’ touch. With another breath, he leaned forward, gaze flicking to Stiles and down to his mouth. Stiles took a quivering breath. He could feel his eyes widen. They paused there, Derek searching Stiles’ face. With a last lick over his dry lips, and a prayer sent to _someone_ that he didn’t make an idiot of himself, Stiles closed the distance between them with a tentative press of lips. Derek brought his hand up, mirroring Stiles’ touch on his cheek. He tilted Stiles’ head to the side, deepening the chaste kiss into something sweeter.

Stiles felt his fingers press into Derek’s jaw as the angle did _great_ things, and as Derek moved his lips against him. They were both chapped from the hours they’d spent in the fall wind, but Stiles couldn’t bring himself to care.

It was a little hard to breath, wrapped up like they were in their sleeping bags. Stiles panted deep breaths whenever their mouths parted, breath mingling with Derek’s. They stayed close, refusing to move too far from each other. Stiles was afraid the moment would break, that the quiet would shatter to leave them strangers again if they held too tightly, or loosened their grip and let it fall away. He stroked along Derek’s face, down to his neck and around to curl in the hair at the nape of his neck. He couldn’t get both hands free to touch Derek.

“It’s hot,” Derek murmured. He was pecking quick kisses along Stiles’ mouth, alternating between his upper and lower lip in little presses that were driving Stiles to distraction.

“Fuck, yeah,” Stiles agreed, voice muffled by Derek’s mouth.

Derek laughed, surprised, his breath warm on Stiles’ mouth. “No,” he corrected, leaning back. Stiles whined before he could stop himself as he pulled away. Derek leaned back in for a quick kiss before there was a zipping sound and – oh yeah – they were still in their own sleeping bags. Stiles fumbled for the zipper on his, and with Derek’s help actually freed himself. Even though the tent was warmed by the sun, it was a burst of pleasantly cool air along his skin. Still, it was important to retain heat, right? That was definitely a thing, Stiles thought, as he reached his liberated hands out and pulled Derek closer.

Tugging made his intentions clear, or desperation had given him strength, because Stiles managed to move Derek from his sleeping bag and into his. Derek draped over Stiles with his top half, their chests pressing into each other. Stiles squirmed happily at the feeling of their bodies against each other for a moment, one hand tangling in Derek’s soft hair, the other roaming the muscles of his back.

“This is nice,” Stiles murmured. Derek laughed again, making Stiles break their kiss with a smile. _That_ was a sound he could stand to hear more of. The soft target of Stiles’ lips taken out of the equation by Stiles’ grin, Derek went for the shock-and-wow by licking along the inside curl of Stiles’ top lip.

That got rid of Stiles’ grin quick. He press up in a small arch that had Derek making an interested noise. Parting his lips, Stiles was rewarded when Derek traced the back of his teeth with the tip of his tongue.

With the increased contact, Stiles was left clinging to Derek’s shoulders to keep from going adrift and never finding his way back again. Derek shifted, and Stiles grabbed at him again. The disapproving sounds in the back of his throat turned into approval when Derek pulled away only long enough to straddle Stiles’ thighs with his own, pressing down with his whole body. Stiles' hands moved up and down the planes of his back, his fingertips seeking out hard patterns of muscle. He wriggled a little until he could reach the hem of Derek’s shirt, could push it up and have hands on the skin stretched over his ribs and the muscles in his back. His fingertips bumped over Derek's spine, then down into the dips above his ass.

Derek’s tongue was flicking against the roof of his mouth and _what_? It was like he _knew_ what would drive Stiles mad. Derek pulled back for a moment to let them catch their breath, his smirk smug.

“Oh, it’s like that, huh?” Stiles asked. Derek laughed, and let Stiles pull him back down. When Stiles parted his lips against the kiss, Derek slipped his tongue into his mouth indulgently. This time, though, Stiles pressed his tongue beneath Derek’s and sucked. The suction made Derek moan in the back of his throat. His fingers, light on Stiles neck, pressed circles below his ears. Stiles tilted his chin up, giving him more access.

Stiles was beginning to get uncomfortable in the confines of his jeans as his dick got interested in the proceedings. Stiles ignored it, concentrating instead on giving as good as he got because _damn_ the boy could kiss. When they broke for air, Derek pressed soft kisses to the corner of Stiles’ mouth or Stiles worked his way along those plush bottom lips with nips and licks that had Derek panting. They were both flushed and out of breath, lips kiss-slick and swollen red. While Stiles was regretting not getting Derek out of his shirt, at least, it wasn’t like they could go much further. Being in the middle of the woods with no intention for sexy times kind of limited their options.

In the middle of the woods… looking for Scott and Kira. Stiles must have tensed, or gotten distracted, because Derek pulled back. His expression was concerned as he looked down at Stiles, and Stiles groaned as he dropped his head away. He’d forgotten where they were, and hit the back of his head off the bottom of the tent with a dull thud. Derek brought his hands up from Stiles’ neck to the top of Stiles’ head, rubbing at it through his hair. “You okay?” he asked, adorably concerned.

Stiles lifted his head for a quick press of lips, but then pulled away. Derek read his expression, which Stiles knew was full of chagrined apology. Instead of frustration or annoyance, Derek's smile was soft. Running his fingers through Stiles’ hair, he said, “Let’s break camp.”

“I’m sorry.” Stiles whispered. His cheeks were beginning to burn pink.

Derek shook his head, fingers still carding through Stiles’ hair. “Don’t be. Let’s go find your friends.”

-

Derek packed everything back into the packs with efficiency that Stiles tried to stay out of the way of. Boyd, Erica, and Isaac were happy to see Derek after a whole night apart, tails moving their entire bodies. They were excited enough even to greet Stiles, licking at his hands.

With everything packed away, they sat around the dead coals of the campfire to eat. Stiles didn’t want it to be awkward. He rambled as they crunched dry cereal and apples, ignoring the fact that it was definitely awkward. He paused in the middle of a story, convinced that Derek was ignoring him. 

Derek looked up, eyebrows raised. “What?” Stiles asked.

“Did you get caught?” he asked. It took Stiles a second to realize that Derek was waiting for the rest of his story.

He smiled into his apple core. “I sacrificed myself – nobly! – to the cause. Scott is kind of hopeless though, and spent the entire night wandering the preserve." He paused. "In retrospect, I should have seen this coming.”

Derek pored the rest of a water bottle onto the fire, making sure the coals were out before they left the clearing. As he turned and twisted in a stretch, Stiles noticed a small black canister strapped to Derek’s belt.

“Is that bear spray? You’re carrying bear spray!”

“Of course I have bear spray; its bear country,” Derek replied, like Stiles was the idiot here.

“You _said_! You said it was stupid to bring it!”

Derek shrugged. “The product isn’t the problem. _You’d_ panic and spray yourself in the face.”

Stiles wished he could be sure that it wouldn’t have been a plausible scenario, but it sounded like him. “I’ll spray _you_ in the face,” he muttered instead.

Derek deadpanned him into submission. “Okay. Try.”

Stiles threw up his hands. “Has anyone ever told you you’re an _ass_?”

“Keep talking. Noise is the best deterrent to bear attacks.”

Stiles made an incoherent exclamation of rage. He followed behind Derek’s retreating form through the underbrush. Speaking of asses. Derek was weirdly psychic, or maybe Stiles’ appreciative noise was louder than he’d thought, because the look he shot over his shoulder was smug in a definitely nsfw way. Stiles tripped over a tree root. He _swore_ Erica was laughing at him.

-

The terrain was more uneven as they started their second day’s hike. Stiles was grateful for the bandaids and thick socks protecting his feet as they climbed steep paths.

Stiles sighed a bit at the bottom of one such part of the path, looking up, daunted. There were saplings lining the path that he could hold, and boulders and tree roots to step on, but it was still going to be a struggle. His legs and back were sore from the walking he’d done yesterday. The dogs bounded up the slope, and Stiles glared at them.

“Come on,” Derek said, amused. He had started the climb, and was looking back with a slight smile at where Stiles was glaring at the hill. Derek took a step down and held a hand out. Stiles gripped it and huffed a surprised breath when Derek pulled him up the first step. They made their way up the path together. If Stiles kept hold of Derek’s hand after they were back on level ground, Derek was the one who wasn’t pulling away. Plus, it wasn’t like the dogs would tell anyone.

They walked until Stiles was getting hungry again. The sun overhead was hot enough that they stopped to put their jackets in their packs. As Derek rearranged his pack, Stiles unwrapped a granola bar to hold him off until their break for lunch. Sparrows fluttered in the branches over the path and Stiles watched them as he crunched through his snack. In the distance there was a long, shrill whistled note. Boyd cocked his head to the side, listening.

Derek closed his pack and hefted it onto his back. “Ready?” he asked.

“Thank you for coming with me,” Stiles said. “I never thanked you.”

That same one-note whistle sounded again in the distance. Derek turned his head to track the sound. “What kind of bird is that?” Stiles asked.

“That’s not a bird.” Derek led them off the path, and through the trees.

“What do you mean it’s not a bird? What else whistles?” Stiles asked, keeping up as they crushed through green underbrush and ducked under branches. Derek looked over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, unimpressed. “A whistle! It’s a whistle!” Stiles flailed, excited. “Scott!”

Derek caught his arm. “Save your voice,” he instructed. “We’ll follow the sound.”

Stiles was buzzing with nervous energy as they climbed across a small creek and up the hill on the other side.

“There’s no more whistles,” he said. “Why aren’t they whistling?”

“They’ve probably been doing it off and on for days,” Derek told him. “That path we were on circles around the creek we crossed and up to this clearing. It’s a site like the one we stopped at last night.”

“And that’s where they are?”

“Sounds like it.” He held a hand back to Stiles, who gripped it thankfully. “Almost there.”

They could see the light of a clearing ahead of them when the whistle sounded again. They broke through the trees just as it stopped and Scott said, “I think that’ll be good until after you eat. Here, I made you – holy shit!”

The last was directed at Erica and Boyd, who had walked forward to greet the new people. Scott flailed and nearly lost the plate he was handing to Kira. Then he noticed Derek and _did_ lose it, the paper plate and burger falling to the dirt. Erica made off with it.

“Oh! Person!” Kira exclaimed.

“Stiles?” Scott questioned. He threw his hands out, bewildered, as Stiles came into view into the clearing. Stiles hurried forward and was wrapped in an excited hug as soon as he reached Kira. He returned it, rocking her back and forth before he let go and thumped Scott on the arm.

“What the hell happened, man?”

Scott gestured at his ankle, which was propped up on a rock and wrapped in bandages.

“He tried to climb up there for a picture,” Kira said, pointing to a large tree.

“I had lanterns. I thought it would be romantic,” Scott admitted sheepishly.

“It was,” Kira consoled him. “Right up until you fell, it was really sweet.”

“Thanks, babe,” Scott said, smiling up at her with stars in his eyes.

“Focus, Scott!” Stiles said, whacking his shoulder again. He couldn’t stop the smile stretching across his face at finding them both completely okay.

“I couldn’t carry him out, so we thought it was best to wait for the rangers to check on us.”

“That’s what all the guides said,” Scott contributed. “To stay in one place and wait for rescue. We’ve been blowing the whistle for _hours_. But,” he said to Stiles. “What are you doing here? And who is that?” he whispered, jerking his head in Derek’s direction.

“Like I would let my best buddies get lost in the woods and not come out and try to find them.”

“Dude,” Scott said with a smile.

“Thanks, Stiles,” Kira said with a grin.

“And, this is Derek.” Stiles reached back and grabbed his hand, pulling him from his awkward hover outside of their reunion. “He helped me find you guys.” Both Kira and Scott flicked glances down to Stiles’ hold on Derek’s hand and looked back up with identically pleased grins. Stiles made a repressive face at them, hoping they could manage to play it cool for once. “We should go radio the Rangers, right Derek?” he said, realizing that his hope was far-fetched enough to be completely out of the range of possibilities. “Make us some burgers, Scott!” he called over his shoulder as he dragged Derek away. Scott gave a salute with his spatula. Kira gave Stiles a double-thumbs-up, which Stiles _totally deserved_ but was ignoring for the sake of coolness.

They walked to the center of the clearing, and Stiles watched as Derek turned on the radio. After some static which had Stiles biting his nails, he made contact with the station. He gave their location and Scott’s condition. Stiles was still giddy with relief and he smiled goofily at Derek while he ended the call.

Maybe it was just gratitude. It wasn't like they were _together_.They were strangers, weren’t they? People made out with strangers all the time, and it didn’t mean anything more than a bit of fun. Stiles thought of their fireside confessions, and the warmth of their morning in the tent and then went for broke. Stiles stepped forward into Derek and put his arms around his neck. Derek stepped closer instantly, fitting his arms around Stiles’ waist.

They were the same height, Stiles realized, pressing his forehead to Derek’s temple. “Thanks for coming with me,” he whispered. It was way more than a bit of fun, he realized, as he held tighter. Derek tilted his face towards Stiles, his fingertips pressing into Stiles’ hips as if to agree.

“You’re welcome,” he whispered back. They held tight until Scott started yelling about their burgers.

As they pulled apart, Stiles said, “You should come visit me in Berkeley.”

Derek’s breath was a bit unsteady, but he said, “Okay.”

“Really?”

He smiled at that. “Yes, Stiles. Really.”

“Okay,” Stiles agreed, smiling back. “Now come meet my friends. I’m starving.” He took Derek’s hand and pulled him back to camp.


End file.
